Pope began his campaign by saying, "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux.
Indian-Killer Andrew Jackson Deserves Top Spot on List of Worst U.S. Presidents
2/20/12
This article was originally published on Presidents' Day 2012.
Unlike the statement in Indian Country Today Media Network’s “Best Presidents for Indian country” story, it’s a bit easier identifying the “worst” presidents for Indian country. Five tend to stand out with the majority of the rest huddled together after that. Here are our nods to the presidents who did more harm than good for Native Americans while in office.
Andrew Jackson: A man nicknamed “Indian killer” and “Sharp Knife” surely deserves the top spot on a list of worst U.S. Presidents. Andrew Jackson “was a forceful proponent of Indian removal,” according to PBS. Others have a less genteel way of describing the seventh president of the United States.
“Andrew Jackson was a wealthy slave owner and infamous Indian killer, gaining the nickname ‘Sharp Knife’ from the Cherokee,” writes Amargi on the website Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory & Practice. “He was also the founder of the Democratic Party, demonstrating that genocide against indigenous people is a nonpartisan issue. His first effort at Indian fighting was waging a war against the Creeks. President Jefferson had appointed him to appropriate Creek and Cherokee lands. In his brutal military campaigns against Indians, Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination. The Creeks lost 23 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama, paving the way for cotton plantation slavery. His frontier warfare and subsequent ‘negotiations’ opened up much of the southeast U.S. to settler colonialism.”
Jackson was not only a genocidal maniac against the Indigenous Peoples of the southwest, he was also racist against African peoples and a scofflaw who “violated nearly every standard of justice,” according to historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown. As a major general in 1818, Jackson invaded Spanish Florida chasing fugitive slaves who had escaped with the intent of returning them to their “owners,” and sparked the First Seminole War. During the conflict, Jackson captured two British men, Alexander George Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, who were living among the Seminoles. The Seminoles had resisted Jackson’s invasion of their land. One of the men had written about his support for the Seminoles’ land and treaty rights in letters found on a boat. Jackson used the “evidence” to accuse the men of “inciting” the Seminoles to “savage warfare” against the U.S. He convened a “special court martial” tribunal then had the men executed. “His actions were a study in flagrant disobedience, gross inequality and premeditated ruthlessness… he swept through Florida, crushed the Indians, executed Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and violated nearly every standard of justice,” Wyatt-Brown wrote.
In 1830, a year after he became president, Jackson signed a law that he had proposed – the Indian Removal Act – which legalized ethnic cleansing. Within seven years 46,000 indigenous people were removed from their homelands east of the Mississippi. Their removal gave 25 million acres of land “to white settlement and to slavery,” according to PBS. The area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations. In the Trail of Tears alone, 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.
Dwight Eisenhower: President Dwight Eisenhower, the World War II hero who served as President from 1953 until 1961, was an early advocate of consultation. On August 15, 1953, he signed into law H.R. 1063, which came to be known as Public Act 280, because he believed it would help forward “complete political equality to all Indians in our nation.”
Public Act 280 transferred extensive criminal and civil jurisdiction in Indian country from the federal government to California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Alaska. Other states were allowed to opt in later. In a signing statement accompanying the bill, Eisenhower objected to certain sections because they allowed other states to impose H.R. 1063 on tribal nations, “removing the Indians from federal jurisdiction, and, in some instances, effective self-government” without requiring “full consultation.” He recommended that Congress quickly pass an amendment requiring states to consult with the tribes and get federal approval before assuming jurisdiction on reservations.
The bad news is Eisenhower didn’t veto H.R. 1063. If he had, the devastating termination and relocation era would have been delayed and possibly stopped, according to Edward Charles Valandra in his book Not Without Our Consent: Lakota resistance to termination, 1950-59. “Indeed, his veto could have stopped its passage. Arguably, had Eisenhower vetoed H.R. 1063, the termination program would have been effectively curtailed long enough for Native peoples to mobilize a preemptive campaign against further measures similar to H.R. 1063. At the very least, Native, state, and U.S. relations would have taken a much different course from what the Native population actually experienced,”
Valandra wrote.
Although the termination era had its roots in the post World War II years and lasted through the 60s, it came under full steam during Eisenhower’s presidency. During that time, Congress “terminated” – withdrew federal acknowledgment from and the trust relationship with – 109 tribes and removed more than 1,365,000 acres of land from trust status. More than 13,260 people lost their tribal affiliation.
A writer on the Native American Netroots website sees the termination era as part of America’s Cold War battle against global communism, “Following World War II, the United States turned its energies into fighting communism. Indian reservations and policies which would allow Indians to determine their own futures were deemed communistic and the federal government set out once again to destroy (terminate) Indian tribes and to ‘allow’ Indians to assimilate like other immigrants. Indian people and their tribal governments vigorously opposed these policies,” the writer says. President Richard Nixon ended the termination era in 1970 and introduced the “self-determination” era.
George W. Bush: While George W. Bush was one of three presidents since 1995 to issue proclamations designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month, his understanding of tribal sovereignty is limited.
At the Unity: Journalists of Color Conference (see video below) in 2004 when questioned by Mark Trahant, the then editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, about sovereignty in the 21st century, Bush gave a muddled answer.
“Tribal sovereignty means that. It’s sovereign. You’re… You’re a… you’ve been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity,” Bush stumbles through his answer. “And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.”
And sovereignty isn’t the only Native American issue Bush was unclear on during his presidency. A 2004 report titled “The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2004” by the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights details where the president fell short on civil rights for Native Americans.
“President Bush has acknowledged the great debt America owes to Native Americans. However, his words have not been matched with action,” the report states.
To back up its claims, the report details how Bush did not provide sufficient funding for tribal colleges and universities, and even proposed cutting $1.5 billion in funding for education programs that benefit Native Americans.
The report also detailed how the Bush administration provided inadequate funding for the Indian Health Service, funding it at $3.6 billion in 2004 when health needs in Indian country called for $19.4 billion.
Housing in Indian country wasn’t funded adequately by Bush either. He failed to provide enough funds to cover the cost of the 210,000 housing units that were needed.
The final point made by the commission was Bush’s termination of critical law enforcement programs, like the Tribal Drug Court Program.
Watch Bush’s response to tribal sovereignty in the 21st century:
Abraham Lincoln: The majority of the United States knows Lincoln as the president who “cannot tell a lie,” and as the leader of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, if you were to ask Native Americans their perception of the great president, the image would be much darker. Lincoln made no effort to work with Native Americans, instead he worked against them. When the Sioux demanded its $1.4 million they had been promised for the sale of 24 million acres of land, that had already started to be settled by whites, Lincoln did nothing. According to an article on the United Native America website, The Sioux revolted and Lincoln called upon General John Pope to handle the uprising. Pope began his campaign by saying, "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made."
Lincoln did not argue, the Indians were defeated, and Lincoln ultimately signed the fates of 38 Indian prisoners in Mankato, Minnesota according to Greatdreams.com/lies.htm. In Lincoln’s defense, 303 Indian men were sentenced to death, but Lincoln only signed for 38. On December 26, 1862 the largest mass execution in United States history took place, based on a cloud of doubt.
The Navajos were subjected to a similar situation as the Dakota, as were others. Lincoln followed his “American System” through battles in the Plains, South and Southwest crippling tribes and forcing them from their lands.
Before he was president, Lincoln was the attorney for the railroads, which in order to be completed, the Indian “situation” had to be taken care of—a belief Lincoln carried into office with him. His railroad connections according to United Native America would lead, not only to the attempted annihilation of the Indian, but to tremendous scandals in the administration of another of Lincoln's war criminals, Ulysses S. Grant.
Author David A. Nichols when describing how Lincoln handled the conflicts with the Indians in The Other Civil War: Lincoln and the Indians addressed it by saying, “in his response to these crises, Lincoln was instrumental in determining the fate of Native Americans in the years following his death.”
General Ulysses S. Grant in Uniform (Copyright Bettmann/Corbis / AP)
General Ulysses S. Grant in Uniform (Copyright Bettmann/Corbis / AP)
Ulysses S. Grant: Grant made it on our ‘Best’ Presidents list as well. Mostly because his intentions were in the right place and something that hadn’t been seen in that time. But those good intentions can’t save him from the fact of the matter. Ultimately it was one word that sealed Grant’s fate for this list—reservations. His hopes to move Indians closer to white civilization by creating these “Native communities” backfired. They became a form of bad policy that did more harm than good by cutting ties for Native Americans to a vast area of land they had been used to occupying for hundreds of years. Reservations isolated Native Americans to an area that was and is taken advantage of by federal government administrations for years to come.
JIM CROW AND REAGAN WORSHIPPING DEVILS!
The G.O.P. Parties With Young Boys. Senitator jon DuCamp of Nebrawska Testafy Before Sercret Congress with 2 Young Boys was Flowen In Airplane to White House to be Photograph in Full Fellitato with Ronald Reagan & Geroge Herbert Walker Bush. The Photographic Images are Available from the Fereral Registater, and entered into the Congressional Record in 1984. REPUGHLicoons PARTY on the Russian River as well A WOMAN FOUND DEAD on door steps of the MASON STREET "Bohemian Club" just three blocks from wheres I live. (I stay in Senior Housing" at the Mark Hopkins, due to my Dad, Grandfather, Greater Grand Master 32 Degrees Scottish Rite Jewish Rich Peoples.
I herd the POLICE CALL go out and CLEARLY ANNOUNCED "Bohemian Club"
happened same night I had to go to have SEVERE ACUTE HYPER TENSION at 2:00 AM to Saint Francis ER. the VICTIM was Brounged in There lots of Police with Walkie Talkies realLoud...Haw. I Had Scanner with out being at home! So you can cleerly ascertain GOPS are REPLUGHicoons are PAEDOPHILLES and ALL BIG WIGS of REPLUGH PARTY are BOHEMIANS, Billy Graham: a PREECHER was a Member, as is KISSENGER, as is TESLA CARS FELLOW, as is RICK PERRY, RICHARD NIXON....hey as I Write JOE BIDEN is visiting the BOHEMIAN CLUB to intercourse with his betters. Most Peoples are un wared that MOVERS & SHAKERS are HERE---at BOHEMIA CLUB. Thet ORDER the PRESIDENTS and SUPREME COURT JUST-ASSES to OBEY WHAT THEY SAY! The have a PRIVATE UNDER THE GG BRIDGE "TUBE-TRAIN" to Connect Them to POINT REYES which IS ONLY FOR THE SUPER ELITE! We are SITTING IN THE GLORIOUS CAPITAL CITY of the NUEVO SCLORRIM ODAR.
Root a Toot Toot! Betty Boop. REMEMBER the FATTY ARBUCKLE accident at the St. Francis Hotel? He was a High Mason & Took the RAPP for another HIGH MASON...this is where the TERM "Took the RAPP" cause he was accuse of SQUISHING the RAPPE wormen & RAPPEing her also!
Any body knows hoe MASONRY symbools & BARRISTERS use WORDS...well, Freemasonry IS THE HIGHEST LAW. They CREATE all LEWS. There's the SERCRET WORD also too. And The Widows Poor Homeless Son [ME] HAS BECOME SAFELY HOUSED in BABYLON BY THE WAY.
UFO Phenomenon
Decoding UFO / Alien Phenomena
UFO PhenomenaAustralian researcher John Lister looks at the politics and possible motivations of the 'leading lights' in today's burgeoning UFO movement.
In these times of globe-trotting UFO gurus, whose message may be far from spiritual, and manipulative mass entertainments which distort the original source material, it is becoming an increasing challenge to maintain an ‘open mind’ when pressured to accept the belief system of a particular faction which is promoted to the exclusion of others.
In this article we’ll look at some of ufology’s leading lights and their internecine warfare, using pertinent quotations which reveal their mindsets. The subject covers the contradictions, permutations and limits of belief, as opposed to open findings, and this will partly be a cautionary exercise.
Pyrrho’s successors
At one extreme of the ufology spectrum are the skeptics — people who express disbelief in all things unscientific. To the casual observer, their obsession with debunking UFOs, paranormal phenomena and fringe science must make them seem as fanatical as any UFO enthusiast. Dr. Stanton T. Friedman said that arch-skeptic Philip Klass followed the cardinal rule of all skeptics: "Make proclamations; don’t do any research."1
To be fair to the movement in general, this really can’t be said to be the norm. An examination of the Australian journal, The Skeptic, will reveal articles with arguments supported by numerous orthodox reference sources. It’s well done — even if you fail to be convinced, for instance, that monosodium glutamate is a harmless food additive. With the amount of consensus information in existence, there should be no difficulty in finding sources nor excuse for unsupported material.Skeptics equate objectivity with their own belief system — scientific materialism — and pretend that this is an apolitical stance. A courageous and truly sceptical individual would be equally suspicious of every pronouncement made by establishment scientists and politicians. Robert Anton Wilson commented on a renegade from CSICOP (the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal):
Professor Marcello Truzzi, sociologist from Eastern Michigan University, was editor of the CSICOP journal when it was called The Zetetic. He had a difference of opinion with the Executive Council about whether dissenting views should be published. He says CSICOP isn’t sceptical at all in the true meaning of the word but is "an advocacy group upholding orthodox establishment views". Their alleged scepticism has become just another dogmatic blind faith.2
Veteran ufologist John A. Keel also cast a critical eye on CSICOP in his recent book Disneyland of the Gods:
Corliss is an elderly New Yorker who is rather proud of his title, "the millionaire communist". One of his pet enterprises is the American Humanist Association (AHA) which he rules with benign despotism. For years the AHA was reportedly on the FBI’s notorious list of "communist fronts". The organisation has about 2000 members. One of its spin-off groups was CSICOP. They declared themselves to be sceptics of almost everything and they staged frequent press conferences designed to get their names into the newspapers by denouncing social evils like dice-throwing, sea serpents and (gasp) UFOs.
...As you might surmise, outstanding members of the sceptics’ sewing circle include Mr. (Philip) Klass and Mr. (James) Randi. At their 1987 convention, Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Isaac Asimov were among the featured speakers.3
In UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (1970) Keel expressed his belief that the UFO phenomenon was being manipulated for some subversive purpose, though by whom and for what end he wasn’t prepared to speculate. 25 years later, he had embraced Forteana and arrived at the conclusion that, because of such illogical phenomena, we inhabit a parallel reality distinct from the hypothetically rational original. This makes our Earth something of an intergalactic tourist attraction (the Disneyland of the Gods of the book’s title) where no rules apply — a thesis that is fanciful if not exactly helpful. Abandoning the conservative style of his earlier work, Keel wrote a cranky appraisal of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a sceptic whom he was appalled to see elevated to the title of ‘Father of Ufology’:
The most hated man in the history of ufology was Mr. J. Allen Hynek, minion of the Air Force... He was teaching at a small college near the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, home of Project Blue Book; what’s more, he could be had for a small amount of money. The Air Force needed all the help it could get to keep an irate UFO-watching public off its back. They were looking for someone with academic credentials who would lend authority to their wild anti-UFO statements — somebody who would just take the money and run.For eighteen years, the US Air Force paid Dr. Hynek an average of $5000 per year as a "consultant" but, by his own admission, he was never consulted about anything. When official committees were formed to review the UFO "problem", the Air Force called in Dr. (Donald) Menzel (ufology’s earliest critic and proponent of air inversions of refracted light) and a young upstart named Carl Sagan. Hynek’s role... was simple. Twice a year Project Blue Book sent him a manila envelope filled with sighting reports. His job was to check through the star charts and astronomical catalogs and come up with celestial explanations.
...Dr. Hynek did have an unfortunate habit of making undocumented claims or getting all his facts scrambled. He seemed to be ignorant of a wide range of subjects, particularly astronomy (!) and psychic phenomena.
After Hynek’s cautious conversion to the ‘cause’ in the early ‘70s, he was opposed by Philip Klaass "the leather-lunged heckler of an aerospace journal (Aviation Week and Space Technology) who first surfaced in March. 1966, to heckle Donald Keyhoe at a UFO press conference. His favourite explanation is the ‘corona effect’, a rare phenomenon that occurs around power lines." 4
In 1968 Dr. Hynek testified before Congress that the legitimate study of UFOs is a scientific taboo. In his estimation there had never been a fair and objective study of the phenomenon, at least none that had been released to the public. When Project Blue Book folded the following year, he stated, "None of the evidence that I have examined would indicate any proof at all that we are being visited by extraterrestrials." By 1973 he was saying that Blue Book "had a job to do, whether rightfully or wrongfully, to keep the public from getting excited." 5
In the mid-’80s, Philip Klass was describing the object that crashed near Roswell in 1947 as a "radar corner reflector" suspended from a weather balloon, and he probably feels vindicated by the Air Force’s recent revelations about Project Mogul. Not so easily dismissed are fatuous remarks like, "Today, 99% of all UFO government documents are available in the national archive."
The famous Cash-Landrum case of 1980 is one of the most meticulously investigated in UFO history. Two women and a young boy suffered radiation burns after being exposed to a diamond-shaped UFO near Houston, Texas. The UFO was escorted towards a nearby Army base by 23 twin-bladed helicopters after leaving scorch marks on the highway and nearby trees. Betty Cash was repeatedly hospitalised in the years that followed and developed cancer. The women mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against the federal government, alleging that a military test vehicle had caused their injuries. Considering the medical evidence alone, Philip Klass’s summation of the case was both misrepresentative and offensive: "I believe the story is a hoax. There is absolutely no evidence. The women’s story is supported only by the claim of Betty Cash that she had serious health problems after the alleged incident." 6
James Oberg is a NASA engineer on the space shuttle program, an associate editor of Space World magazine and the author of several books on the Russian space program, on which he is considered an expert. In the late ’70s and early ’80s he wrote a column for OMNI magazine, ‘UFO Update’, in which he regularly debunked all sighting reports. He invited readers to send in their own reports, which he promised to pass on to his associate Philip Klass for ‘expert’ analysis. After CIA documents surfaced in 1978 regarding a confrontation between two F-4 Phantom fighter jets and a UFO over southern Iran on September 19th, 1976, Oberg slovenly reported Klass’s opinion as the last word on the subject. This was to the effect that there was no reliable information about the incident because it had occurred in a foreign country which, by 1979, had become a new enemy, thus preventing American researchers’ access to the original witnesses.
In 1994 the NBC television program Sightings managed to trace the original witnesses, high-ranking officers in what had been Iran’s Imperial Air Force, who provided detailed testimony. This appeared in published form in the Sightings book (1996) by Susan Michaels.Oberg was first invited to speak on the Sightings program about the controversial footage of anomalous objects from Discovery mission STS-48 in 1991, which he maintained were ice crystals from a water dump. It was pointed out that some ufologists see Oberg as a paid government UFO debunker and not the "independent analyst" that he claims to be, yet Oberg was subsequently invited back to the program to prognosticate on the UFO crash at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in 1965 (which he believed was a failed Russian probe to Venus) and the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in 1961, whose later memories of the incident, obtained under hypnotic regression, Oberg traced to the film Invaders from Mars (1953) and an episode of The Outer Limits (1964). "Can’t prove it but the sequence is highly suggestive," he asserted in 1994.
The late Dr. Carl Sagan based his scepticism on the shaky certainty that faster-than-light travel is impossible, so there would be a passage of five millennia between any two visits from the same extraterrestrial civilisation. He identified five stars which may possibly support solar systems in which ET civilisations have developed, including Alpha Centauri (4 1/2 light years away) and Tau Ceti (15 light years away). Sagan evidently believed that anything approaching travel at the speed of light was also an impossibility. While prepared to concede the possibility of a singular alien visit which kick-started the Sumerian civilisation, he dismissed the astronomical knowledge of the Dogon tribe of Mali, west Africa, with the supposition that they had obtained it from "an explorer, an adventurer or an early anthropologist" of the 19th century, who happened to be well-versed in then-current astronomical debate about Sirius A and the existence of its white dwarf companion.
In the long litany of ‘ancient astronaut’ pop archaeology, the cases of apparent interest have perfectly reasonable alternative explanations, or have been misreported, or are simple prevarications, hoaxes or distortions. This description applies to arguments about the Piris Reis map, the Easter Island monoliths, the heroic drawings on the plains of Nazca, and various artefacts from Mexico, Uzbekistan and China.
...There are too many loopholes, too many alternative explanations, for such a myth (as the Dogon’s) to provide reliable evidence of past extraterrestrial contact. If there are extraterrestrials, I think it much more likely that unmanned planetary spacecraft and large radiotelescopes will prove to be the means of their detection.7
After studying only a handful of cases, Sagan wrote an article for Parade magazine in 1993 in which he flatly refuted all abduction reports as the result of hallucinations or other mental disturbances. Abduction researcher Dr. David Jacobs, author of Secret Life, was not impressed. "Carl Sagan has what I call the arrogance of ignorance. He is a person who has enough arrogance to believe that he can answer the UFO and abduction mystery through lack of knowledge."8
Holding the fort
Self-described Forteans occupy a nebulous zone of disunity between skeptics and believers, although their intellectual sympathies clearly reside with the former. Bob Rickard, co-editor of the Fortean Times (UK), described the Fortean outlook in these words:
I like to think we are true sceptics in the Greek sense, not in the modern American sense. If you mention the word sceptic in America — with a ‘k’ that is — it automatically means an attitude that you are dismissing anything non-scientific. The original sceptics questioned things in order to discover things about them, which is similar to the attitude that Buddha asked his disciples to follow. He said if you want to know, you must question your teachers, your parents, your rulers and everybody — otherwise you won’t know. Sure it’s uncomfortable, but as (Charles) Fort said, "I don’t know how to find out anything new without upsetting people". ...We tell our readers: don’t believe it, even if you read it in the Fortean Times. But you have to trust people sometimes. ...There’s a quote I like: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert".9
The suspension of belief tends to reduce the magazine to the level of entertainment for skeptics, a modern-day freak show of weird stories whose very absurdity mitigates the need for deeper thought. Feature-length articles on particular subjects often reveal the magazine’s bias towards the psychological reductionism of Carl Gustav Jung, who believed that UFOs are mandalas — archetypal images of our deep selves which invite external projections. He warned us to separate what we think we see from what we actually see.
Fortean Times writers have extended the projection theory to all manner of phenomena, including, of all things, cattle mutilations (or ‘mootilations’, as the pun-happy publication refers to them). Peter Brookesmith is a regular contributor to the Fortean Times and the author of a recent debunking book, UFO: The Government Files. During the course of a critique on Nick Pope’s Open Skies, Closed Minds, Brookesmith noted: "His skimpy, sceptic-free bibliography includes one of ufology’s most unhinged books, Linda Moulton Howe’s An Alien Harvest."10 Skeptics publish books for every prejudice. If you doubt Howe’s journalistic integrity you might appreciate a title warmly recommended by Richard Thieme:
Dan Kagan and Ian Summers have written a masterful investigation of "cattle mutilation" (Mute Evidence, Bantam Books, NY, 1984). It details how predator damage becomes "cattle mutilation" conducted with "surgical precision" as a result of media distortion, "professional experts" who kept everyone one step away from the evidence (common in UFO research) and true believers who suspended their capacity for critical judgement.11
John Keel expressed vitriolic disdain for Forteans, whose efforts, he believes, have abandoned the standards set by Charles Hoy Fort.
They hate each other with a fierce passion and are completely suspicious of everyone else. When the first Fortean Society was founded in 1932, the man after whom it was named, Charles Fort, flatly refused to join, grumbling that he would sooner join the Elks. The Society’s journal, Doubt, was published at random intervals, usually one issue every two or three years, and its editorial position was that it was against everything and everybody. ...Since each Fortean has a theory to explain the bizarre things he is investigating, and since each theory contradicts all other theories, the world of Forteana is a bedlam of battered egos and misplaced sentiments. The Forteans not only expect to be ignored, they demand it.12
Keel defended Fort’s own reputation, pointing out that his sources were mostly scientific journals, not newspapers, as often claimed by ill-informed critics.
Intellectual cowardice is only one of the problems of the scientific community. Fort rubbed their noses in the swill generated by their gibberish and illiteracy. It was no secret then and now that academic publications are designed to protect the inept and to conceal ignorance. People with nothing to say, who even lack the ability to say nothing, can hide behind the academic method for a lifetime.13
The respectables
The field of ufology is roughly divided between its orthodox and apocryphal enthusiasts. The dividing line has been blurred by the general acceptance of a modern mythology that embraces UFO crash retrievals, Grey aliens, abductions, underground bases, Majestic 12, crop circles and cattle mutilations. ‘Respected’ ufologists are concerned with demarcating the boundaries of the subject in the name of conventional science, and it is their overview, promulgated in the mass media, which has shaped public perception of the phenomenon. They espouse a governmental ‘cover-up’ but eschew any whiff of a ‘conspiracy theory’, as though the terms are mutually exclusive. The ‘extraterrestrial hypothesis’ is the given framework for their theories, in which case it ceases to be one hypothesis among many and becomes an article of faith.
Jerome Clark is a UFO historian, deputy president of the J. Allen Hynek Centre for UFO Studies and editor of the CUFOS journal, International UFO Reporter. He is highly critical of such luminaries as John Lear, Bob Lazar, Bill Cooper and Dr. Leo Sprinkle, while proffering his own select cases (Lonnie Zamora, Robert Emenegger-Alan Sandier, Robert Suffern) as the most significant in the history of the subject. In two of these cases, it could be countered, the ‘evidence’ involves as much hearsay as any story told by Clark’s foes. He is prepared to accept that something probably did crash near Roswell in 1947 and that this may have been an alien vehicle, which possibly yielded technological secrets that have since been utilised in the development of secret military aircraft.
Clark and fellow researcher Curtis Peebles are satisfied that the alleged crash of a UFO at Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948 was a hoax, based on an investigation by J.P. Cohn which exposed the story as a fraud scheme devised by Silas Newton, an oil magnate. Stanton Friedman is not so sure, while Wendelle Stevens, Bill Hamilton and Virgil Armstrong are convinced that the incident did occur. Armstrong served as an Army captain in the DIA, worked for the CIA and was a major in the elite Green Beret unit during the Vietnam War. He said that a relatively intact disc landed in an area of the White Sands Proving Grounds on March 25th, 1948 and that he was part of the recovery operation which found five diminutive male corpses aboard the craft.
Addressing a UFO conference in Sydney in 1990, Jerome Clark dismissed America’s Borderland Sciences Research Foundation as "an occult group", a breathtaking phrase which, by association, relegates to superstition and pseudo-science the work of centuries of alternate researchers in a multitude of disciplines. Ex-BSRF director Tom Brown believed in putting the "poetry" back into science, a poetry that included esoteric considerations derided by the materialists. In their 1975 book The Unidentified, Lauren Coleman and Jerome Clark suggested that the UFO phenomenon was a human enigma — a combination of cultural belief and visionary experience.
Abduction blues and greys
Bill Cooper, the ‘bete noir’ of American ufology, published Dr. Stephen J. Kerswel’s affidavit against Bud Hopkins, which included Hopkins’ volunteered disclosure of his CIA employment, in Behold a Pale Horse (1991). Appalled by Hopkins’ treatment of abductees, Kerswel mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against the artist for practising psychiatry without any professional qualifications. This test case gave a green light to anyone wishing to offer their services as an abduction ‘counsellor’.
Ex-CIA agent Derrel Sims runs a support group attached to the Houston UFO Network (HUFON), where the self-described "Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Master Hypnotherapist and Master Hypno-Anaesthesiologist"14 hypnotises abductees to wage a bizarre counter-intelligence operation against the evil aliens. Robert Dean and his wife, Cecilia, launched their Crisis Intervention Training Program in Tucson, Arizona, in January, 1996. The 60-hour course trains students to "debrief" abductees. Successful candidates receive a certificate which purportedly authorises them to counsel people who have "some UFO-related trauma".15
The abduction mythology, with its requisite Greys, hybrids and implants, has been formalised by a faction of psychiatrists, psychologists and researchers who discount alternate theories (metaphysical contact, hypnogogic imagery, false memory syndrome, mind control, etc.) Half of all abduction reports emanate from the USA, where individuals like Dr. John Mack, Bud Hopkins, Dr. David Jacobs, Dr. Edith Fiore and Dr. John Carpenter have cultivated a lucrative business in the belief market. Whitley Strieber, responsible for popularising the phenomenon, preaches the need to overcome fear and suspend judgement of the "visitors".
I feel that the present fad of hypnotizing "abductees", which is being engaged in by untrained investigators, will inevitably lead to suffering, breakdown, and possibly even suicide. These investigators usually make the devastating error of assuming that they understand this immense mystery.
They apply nineteenth-century scientific materialism and mechanistic thinking to a problem that actually stretches the limits of the most sophisticated modern thought. These untrained, often poorly educated and unskilled people are spreading a plague of confusion and fear.16
Dr. John Mack plays a 15-minute videocassette at his lectures of an interview he conducted with a bewildered looking Whitley Strieber, whose rambling testimony included an anecdote about looking into the eyes of a "visitor" and gaining instant enlightenment, after which the novelist was able to read people’s minds for a week. Mack compared some of his own experiences on LSD to Strieber’s visitations, after which he faced the camera and said, "Cut that bit out."
Part 1 |
UFO Phenomena Part 2 of an article in which John Lister looks at the politics and possible motivations of the 'leading lights' in today's burgeoning UFO movement.
In her 1989 book Encounters, Dr. Edith Fiore attempted to define a thematic unity from 13 largely disparate abduction reports that she had obtained using hypnotic regression, including that of one man who recalled a former existence as an intergalactic mercenary marine before retirement to the "backwater" of Earth, where he "incorporated" the body of a young boy. He became a "walk-in" in channelling parlance and possessed the donor’s body without consent, contradicting a tenet of this particular mythology.
Fiore helpfully provided the reader with 50 questions to determine the likelihood of personal abduction. These were to be answered by the subconscious in the yes/no swings of a pendulum (which could simply be a button) suspended from a string held between thumb and forefinger.
She recommended that the exercise be repeated at different intervals over a number of months and that the answers, including discrepancies, be recorded to arrive at the mean average truth. Apart from the dubious validity of the exercise itself, one must ponder the influence of subjective desire and physical exhaustion on the outcomes. Fiore’s summation was resoundingly positive:
One of the most interesting findings that emerged from this work was the many healings and attempts to heal on the part of the visitors. Even when lasers were not yet being used by Earth people, the extraterrestrials were using them on humans in their spacecraft. I wonder if some of the modern developments in medicine, technology and space exploration can be credited directly or indirectly to the intervention of our space friends. Remember telepathy! Wouldn’t it be interesting if our top scientists were being helped with their research and development?17
Following their appearance at the 1996 UFO Symposium in Brisbane, Dr. Stanton Friedman and Dr. John Mack gave joint lecture evenings in Sydney and Melbourne. The Sydney lecture was held at Scots Church, Wynyard, on October 16th, where Dr. Mack ironically spoke about the need to do away with "the dross of religion". "Religion is a hoax," he stated flatly, while preaching his own eco-religion which replaces sin with a new guilt complex: environmental vandalism. "I’ve been called the first green ufologist and I’m proud of that!" He compared humanity to a parasitic infestation on the skin of the Earth, which is now exacting its revenge. Not for Mack the finer point that most of us are subject to a powerful elite who rape the environment as they please; this is our collective guilt.
At the same time he encouraged us to think of the extraterrestrials as gods and to treat them accordingly during any prospective encounter, because through them lies our only chance to escape ecological doom, an archetypal New Age belief. The aliens are offering us speedy transformation because time is running short. By Dr. Mack’s own standards, such intervention would constitute a subversion of natural justice (viz. human extinction).The stooped Harvard psychiatrist spoke in assured, dulcet tones about higher spirituality and the godliness of the aliens (psychiatric terms?) to an audience of the faithful.
He went on to talk about gratifying sexual encounters that many abductees had allegedly experienced — carnal adventures that we could all look forward to. (Nervous, excited laughter from the audience.) During abductions, he maintained, the aliens often like to pair off men and women and force them to copulate because, for some reason, the aliens are very curious about why we do it. (This elicited a roar of laughter from the audience, who ignored the element of coercion involved.) The aliens sometimes engage in sex with humans, we were told, because they’re interested in the experience and want to create hybrid children. Mack made no mention of rape or technical procedures to remove ova and semen. It seems that his "gods" are beyond human trivialities like morality and ethics.
Stanton’s universe
Nuclear physicist Dr. Stanton T. Friedman appeared to support his colleague’s contentions, describing abduction as "the fast food route to interplanetary travel". (It seems that all we’ve ever needed was a Big Mack!) If he were to see an alien vessel land and its occupants emerge, Friedman claims that he would approach them with the demand "Lead me to your taker!" It gets a laugh but we should consider what an appropriate motto this is for quislings.Another of Friedman’s stock phrases concerns the need for an "Earthling orientation" to unite humanity. He believes that exposure of the UFO cover-up would lead "the younger generation" to exert pressure for such a new world order — the dream of Ronald Reagan and the dread of ufologist-prophets like Stan Deyo and Norio Hayakawa.
I think the only hope for a decent future for this planet is an Earthling orientation. The easiest way to get it is to recognise that somebody’s coming here and that, to them, we are all Earthlings, like it or not. 18
Friedman’s formula lecture grinds through well-worn territory — the Roswell crash (his specialty), MJ-12, the Avro disc, Betty and Barney Hill, the Condon Report, trace samples and famous UFO photographs (the same conspicuous selection adopted by Bill Cooper for his own lectures). One slide showed a disc partly obscured by white vapour, which Friedman identified as an "electromagnetic plasma gas emission". He said that recent developments in nuclear fusion and nuclear fission offered exciting possibilities for the future of space travel, but one would expect a nuclear physicist to promote his livelihood. Of course this form of propulsion is nothing like that used by the aliens, whose technology is "thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years in advance of our own".
Friedman won’t countenance the "cult" of Nikola Tesla and stories about Nazi flying saucers or the possible development of anti-gravity technology in this or any previous age.Friedman is convinced that Robert Lazar has no scientific credentials and has never held a scientific post, based on what little he could determine in the course of investigation. He maintains that Lazar failed to gain a high school diploma, although he did pass a course in chemistry. This conflicts with a statement in Alien Encounters magazine: "Bob Lazar was born in 1959 and grew up in Long Island, New York, graduating from Westbury High School in 1976."19 Lazar has stuck to his oft-repeated testimony since 1989 and has received the belated support of Dr. Michael Wolf. British researcher Timothy Good was more circumspect in his assessment of Lazar:
Bob Lazar’s story is fascinating and I feel it’s essentially true. I think he’s lied about his credentials — there’s absolutely no evidence that he has any qualifications as a nuclear physicist, but he’s a very talented engineer, that’s for sure... I think he needed to bolster his image to make the story more credible, but of course, once people realise that he’s exaggerated about something, they tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater, which, in his case, I don’t think we should.20
Lazar’s credibility is further strained by one of his less publicised claims — that when he worked at Los Alamos in the early ’80s he wrote a paper on "Project Excalibur", the construction of an "earth-penetrating, nuclear-tipped missile to destroy underground facilities". At Area S4 he allegedly read a document which referred to "Project Looking Glass, which dealt with the physics of seeing back in time".21
Such a project would seem redundant in the wake of full-fledged time travel asserted in the Montauk mythology.Bill Cooper said that the MJ-12 documents were posted to several UFO researchers in the form of undeveloped rolls of 35mm film in December, 1984. One of the recipients, Californian researcher Jamie Shandera, didn’t go public with the information until 1987, when he was supported by associate Bill Moore. Moore is a colleague of the owlish Dr. Stanton Friedman, who has defended the authenticity of the documents ever since and boasts about a $1000 bet he won from Philip Klass regarding the type-face employed in them.
Bill Cooper believes the documents were a clever hoax and offered pertinent criticism of their Presidential Executive Order serial numbers. He maintained that the other recipients kept their silence because they realised that the documents were a forgery. Cooper said that MJ-12 really referred to "Majority", not Majestic, a point that a researcher on the Australian panel at the Sydney lecture tried to correct Friedman on.The Canadian scientist was plainly irritated to find that Cooper’s proverbial ghost had dogged his steps to the shores of the Antipodes.
A question from the audience asked him to comment on assertions that he was an employee of the CIA, at which he launched into a tirade against "a certain Mr. Milton William Cooper" who had made the accusation. "Anybody who has the audacity to reprint the entire Protocols of the Elders of Zion in one of his books, that anti-Semitic forgery which has been proven to be (so) for the last ninety to a hundred years, has got no credibility at all!" Friedman added that the only time he had ever worked for the government was a fortnight’s duty as a postal delivery officer at a university when he was a student there.
Spooky connections
The CIA’s infamous Robertson Panel of 1953 recommended that UFO organisations be infiltrated and their activities monitored. Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret (1987) recounted the success of this initiative and its duplication in Britain and Australia. Many of the early groups collapsed from within but is there any reason for the complacent belief that governmental subversion is an historical footnote? Not so, according to researchers who claim to be subjects of ongoing surveillance. This claim has assumed the status of a rite of passage or, in the case of those named as intelligence agents themselves, a badge of verisimilitude.
I have been saying, since the first time I came out and started talking, that the whole UFO movement is controlled by the CIA, and most of the people that you’ve ever seen on stages at UFO events are working for the secret government.22
Bill Cooper nominated various individuals in this capacity, thus ensuring his marginalisation and a ufological backlash that has sought to depict him as a paranoid liar, an alcoholic and a political extremist. Cooper has deserved much of the opprobrium meted out to him by his adoption and misrepresentation of other people’s research, making him a soft target for critics like Donna Kossy [see New Dawn No. 31, pp.39-43]. "But focussing on any one aspect of Cooper’s junk heap of claims is impossible," she alleges in typically restrained style. This blanket statement drags into perfidy the likes of Stan Deyo, John Lear, Bob Oechsler, Bill Hamilton, Linda Moulton Howe and Fred Steckling. Kossy and her sources (the now-married couple who edit America’s UFO Magazine and who were conspicuously slandered by Cooper in Behold a Pale Horse) are not beyond a little ‘creative’ journalism.
Neither Cooper nor anyone else has ever asserted that George Bush was a member of MJ-12. Kossy and company seem to have attempted some clumsy obfuscation of Dr. Vannevar Bush with the Presidential namesake. She proceeded to put an entirely spurious statement into Cooper’s mouth: ‘Since George Bush was on MJ-12, he obviously knew the secret while President.’There’s no doubt that the field of ufology would be immensely poorer without the involvement of ufologist-whistleblowers who admit to prior involvement in the military and intelligence communities. Veteran conspiracy writer Jim Keith cautioned us to temper our cupidity for knowledge with a wider perspective: "People connected with the CIA tend to stay connected with the CIA."23
Thus we should note John Lear’s inordinate pride over his involvement in William Casey’s ‘October Surprise’ operation of 1980.During one of his 1992 Nexus lectures, Stan Deyo recalled a meeting with Stanton Friedman and William Moore that took place in an all-night diner in a small Arizona town during 1983. The pair offered to share secret information with Deyo if he could say the correct code (which was apparently "Gold Eagle"):
What bothered me was that I thought that these guys were just as straight as an arrow and there was no cover-up, and here they are telling me a few hours before, ‘Aliens are here!’ They showed me pictures and stuff like this in my hotel room back in ’83 and they were coming on from the position ‘They are here’. That certainly may be but it worried me that it was under a code sign and these guys are out here telling the UFO crowd various things, and saying we’ve got to do something about this cover-up, blah-blah-blah, and they’re part of the cover-up! I don’t understand. Maybe I misunderstood, and if you’re listening, guys, if you see this tape, I’d appreciate a letter... and not from your solicitors either.24
Bill Moore’s involvement with Air Force Intelligence in a scheme to discredit another UFO researcher, a man who subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown, came to the attention of the press in the 1980s. KLAS TV reporter George Knapp pressed Moore for an explanation, who offered this pathetic defence:
My involvement was only with the motive of learning how the process worked, who was involved with it, and ultimately, if I could, what was behind it. Why is the government doing these kinds of things? I never did quite learn why but I did learn who and I learned a great deal about how.25
FEMA (the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency) is allegedly under the control of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger. Anyone who is concerned about its activities might wonder about Bob Dean’s loyalties. Before his lecture at Leeds University on March 2nd, 1996, Dean was introduced by Graham W. Birdsall (the editor of Britain’s UFO Magazine, which organised the event), who made the following, puzzling statements:
...Retiring from the Army in 1976, he spent the next fourteen years working for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration [sic]. He retired as an Emergency Service Manager from the FEMA County Sheriff’s Department. Robert is the former Arizona State Assistant Director and the former FEMA County Section Director for Mutual UFO Network, MUFON...26
Ufologists are reputedly known as ‘useful idiots’ in CIA circles and their behaviour sometimes confirms this impression. The recent Australian documentary Conspiracy featured the leaders of Sydney’s ASTRO group as ‘Dennis, Independant Researcher’ (Bob Lazar’s first nom de plume) and ‘James T. Ellis, Former Intelligence Analyst’. This name was apparently based on a U.S. Air Force radar operator named James Ellis, who stated that UFO radar blips were routinely detected during his 26 years of service.
Contemporary fascination with the subject has seen the launch of four commercial magazines in Britain within the last two years all of which are striving to carve a separate identity in the core market, Generation X (Files). Two are in the anti-conspiracy camp and two are in the opposition but they generally mull over the same material that tired American publications have been repackaging since the heady days of the late ’80s, when Lear, Lazar, Cooper and Bielek revolutionised the field. There have been more recent novelties like flying triangles, the Santilli film, the Brazilian crash and stories of violence meted out to alien survivors but there is a perceptible disappointment that greater revelations have not followed.
In the face of sustained government intransigence, there is a growing consensus that such revelations depend on the caprice of the aliens.Linda Moulton Howe said that we live in a "schizophrenic society". The description aptly suits the microcosm of ufology, where a supermarket of belief systems has obscured the relevance of the subject and reinforced its fringe status. The general public have been acclimatised to the existence of extraterrestrials through what Bob Oechsler believes to be a deliberate campaign of "selective fictions". The reliable strategy of divide and conquer is applied with the modern propaganda of ‘friendly fascism’. Whether or not aliens exist, they offer a convenient scapegoat and distraction to the very real machinations of terrestrial invaders.
REFERENCES
1. Stanton Friedman, public lecture in Sydney, October 16th, 1996.
2. The New Inquisition, Robert Anton Wilson, 1991, U.S., p.47.
3. Disneyland of the Gods, John A. Keel, 1995, Illuminet Press, U.S.
4. ibid.
5. Video: UFOs - The Best Evidence, George Knapp and Lucinda Owens, 1994, 180 minutes - 3 parts, KLAS TV Inc./AltaMira Productions, L.A. (a revised and expanded edition of a 1989 documentary, 96 minutes - 2 parts).
19. ‘Profile: Bob Lazar’, Stuart Taylor, Alien Encounters, No.6, December 1996, op. cit., pp.47.
20. The X Files Book of the Unexplained - Volume One, op. cit., p.267.
21. Video: The Lazar Tape... And Excerpts From the Government Bible, Bob Lazar and Gene Huff, 1991, 40 minutes, UFO Central Video/Tri-Dot Productions, U.S.
22. Video: Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (EBE’s), a.k.a. William Cooper: Alien Agenda Conference, September 1990, Part 2, a lecture by Milton William Cooper, 1990, 135 minutes, Shining Star Productions, California.
23. TV documentary: Conspiracy, Victor Gentile and Brendan Young, 1996, 44 minutes, Mystery Clock Cinema Ltd., Australia.
24. Video: Stan Deyo in Conference - Tape A, a lecture by Stan Deyo, 1992, 142 minutes, Nexus Video Publishing/Instant Replay Productions, Australia.
25. Video: UFOs - The Best Evidence, op. cit.
26. Video: Cosmic Top Secret - A Lecture by Robert Dean, op. cit.
This article originally appeared in New Dawn Magazine No. 43 (July-August 1997).
RE: [SOURCE]Nonprofit organizations get thoroughly audited every year
There is actually very little Oversight with out a Fuss. Remember the Scandels about Tele Vandels several Years ago? Joyce Meyer, Trefloo Doller, Etc? They are Still Raking in those Millions!
I cannot understand your Convenient Suspension of Belief, Murder is a Serious Criminal Act, Murder of Innocent Babies, for Medical Profit, is beyond the pale...okay, I can understand your [HOPE] that no [CHANGE] Woman could be So Calculating, Cynical or Power-Money Hungry...especially in My Party.
Your Party is My Party. However, I am Jewish....We Shall Never Forget....& I do NOT BY ANY REACH of ANY IDIOT'S IMAGINATION group you into the WW2 Epic.If you are 70 Years Old, you were born in 1944, I am 65 & Born in 1949.
Those [FEMALE] your accusers are Sick Products of Americoon Propaganda. The Problem people who try to Show These Low Grade Idiots [AMERICANS] where the Viral Hatred of the WAR MACHINE which is the FACE OF AMERICA in the Rest of the World comes from are HATED!
These POOR MORONS cannot COMPREHEND the Role the WAR & INTRIGUE MACHINATIONS of the MONROE DOCTRINE allows OUR GOVERNMENT to Commit Heinous Crimes in Foreign Sovereign Nations WITH IMPUNITY!
However these MALL CRAWLING, CONSUMPTIVE CONSUMERS & SMART PHONE TOTING dolfs will SOON WITNESS WHAT THE REST OF THE WORLD SEES DAILY, Every Day...in fact, WHAT THE AMERICAN FIRST NATIONS SAW....because when it all comes home, the SHOCK will cause MASS COGNITIVE DISSOCIATION, and GENOCIDAL RIOTING, MAYHEM, BLOOD AND ROTTING CORPSES!
What the Weapons won't Kill, the Plagues From Rotten Corpses will kill Millions,
MY FRIENDS IN THE MILITARY INFORM THERE IS A GREAT STOCK PILING OF NAPALM , A GREAT STOCKPILING! A Effective Way to KILL & CLEANSE in URBAN WARFARE! DEAD ROTTING CORPSES ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ALSO; I SAW THE EFFECTS OF NAPALM FIRST HAND...
JEWS & MOST Vietnam combat veterans Do Not Eat Bar-B-Que....Smelling BAR-B-QUE PORK causes COMBAT FLASH BACKS!
I HAVE NIGHTMARES in my Senior Apartment when the WATERMELON SWARTZ'S HAVE A BAR-BE-QUE COOKOUT....IT HAPPENED TODAY During my Afternoon Nap!
I was in the ER for ACUTE HYPERTENSION the other night...I will tell you, It was DESIGNED to PUT FEAR INTO ME! As a Very Critical Observer of PROPAGANDA, I was Critically Dissecting my Feeling, Fears & the Very Urgent but Low Key Treatments Given to me, Oh yes, I was +230/132 BP, Very Serious, & I was on the verge of a Stroke or Heart Failure....
So I am looking at the world as a SINKING SHIP that I might soon depart. This does NOT give me a LICENSE TO just STFU & Take It Easy.
I Am COMMITTED TO EXPOSING EVIL because 99% are just plain TOO DAMNED STUPID to CARE!
WE AS GOOD CITIZENS of the REICH-LAND were Very Cooperative with the AUTHORITIES right up to being GASSED IN THE OVENS! OBEDIENT, COOPERATIVE..then EXTERMINATED!! Oy Veh!
Your AMERICAN DILETTANTES who are addicted to iPhones & Google Glass will BEHAVE EXACTLY THE SAME! They will even have a APP ON THEIR SMART PHONE to GUIDE THEM TO THE CREMATORIUMS!
These Millennials can't read a map, drive a car or even Find a Street Address with out a GOOGLE APP.
It will be SOOOOO EASY TO Slaughter Them.... I am so sad to say, They are not worth saving...HOWEVER, Little Unborn Babies ARE WORTH BETTER....God Dammit!
do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers
DANGERIOUS PROPAGANDA ON POLICITCAL FORUM from White Anglo Supremicist =================================================================
Global Warming/Climate Change - Pope Francis Declares It Real (And Caused By By Human Activity) Please see link below.
Pope Francis just refuses to believe the world is flat. Sorry, Heartland Institute and other deniers.
It is a little known fact that the Vatican retains a staff of first rate scientists worldwide, many of them rigorous no nonsense Jesuits, and they are no paid shills for oil and coal interests. They speak hard reality.
Please spare us rubbish about Francis being demonic, blah, blah, blah, just because he sees facts.
Not in Berkeley - a Protestant
http://news.yahoo.com/pope-draft-encyclical-calls-swift-action-climate-change-101836127.html ==================================================================== NOT IN BERKELEY GETS HIS FALSE ASSUMPTIONS BLASTED TO HELL! ==============================================================
How the hell cares what the Pope says! (greenbrae) I don't give a rats ass about the pope! Let's just look at Pope's in history...
The Cathlotic church and the Pope at the time helped the Nazis while hiding thiss fact from the world! After World War II the Roman Catholic and Pope hid and orchestrated the escape from justice of Nazi and Ustashi war criminals.
The Pope did nothing while Jews were gassed.
Also you man made global warming freaks never admit what the co-found of GREEN PEACE has to say about it all! Heave forbid you can't utter his words... because they make all you global warming idiots look foolish! THE FREAKING CO-FOUNDER OF GREEN PEACE SAYS MAN IS NOT CAUSING GLOBAL WARM!
So do I believe a head of Church that let millions of Jews be murdered in horrific ways or do I believe a man that started the entire world wide enviro movement to start with. I the Co-Founder of GREEN PEACE says man is not causing global warming, I will just take his word over a Jew Killer! ========================================================================
THIS POSTED BY THE LOW LIFE WEASEL in SAN MATEO; "Not In Berkeley." ===================================================================
Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moore Now Works For Corporate Interests) See link.
Also, Moore is not a climate scientist. Ask peer reviewed specialists, on the field, in places like the South Pole, what they have actually observed, and they will leave you without doubt. Many of them work for NASA, like a former next door neighbor of mine who was sent worldwide to take data.
Two things about deniers - they are not often (if at all) peer reviewed and do not go on the field.
Moore ceased ties with Greenpeace long ago.
I also note that many deniers, such as you, scream all kinds of insults, which does not help your cause at all. As Shakespeare wrote, methinks they doth protest too much.
Yet why is the Right so opposed to global warming anyway? There's lots of profit to be made with things like new technologies or energy sources to fight it. Isn't profit what the GOP is all about?
======================================================================= BELOW IS MY (Boxcarro) The HAM RADIO OPERATOR'S HAT IN THE RING! -------------------------Boxcarro -------------------------------
Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moore Now You are so universally hated here, now you are trying to suck up to your Lover- Berkeley the Radio Man from Berlin.
Sorry, Charlie; the Gentleman who happens to be a LEGAL Immigrant, a Working Man, has a Job, and Pays His own Bart Fare, has class a Replugh would admire!
He is also very Tactful, Factual and Will Back Down, Like he did the UppityAss Piggie with "ONLY THREE" Tesla Automobiles "And NO MORE!"
Both of you are weak, German for Kow Towing to a Frikking Piggie with THREE GODDAMN $101,000.00 TESLAS! Sorry, dude, a frikkin LIBERAL SNOB is no more worthy of praise than a Capitalist (As Leon Trotsky states) Greed, One Upsmanship, keeping up with the Jones'es. Propaganda.
Pride is being MORE GREENER that THOU is disgusting.
"The reasoning behind 3 teslas, charging one off Solar Arrays would take a week."
I spent years in the Mojave Desert living in a CAMPER with Solar Arrays. I ran Ham Radios, everything. All Uni-Solar 100w. Panels bought at Quartzsite or at Slab City.
Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moore Now Works For Corporate Interests)Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moore Now Works For Corporate Interests)Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moore Now Works For Corporate Interests)
================================================================= HATE SPEECH a VILE SCREED from a IDIOT.... -----------------------------------------------------------------
re x : Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Mo (berkeley north / hills) "Sorry, Charlie; the Gentleman who happens to be a LEGAL Immigrant, a Working Man, has a Job, and Pays His own Bart Fare, has class a Replugh would admire!" That is total crap! He came here when he was a little tiny kid. He is no more an immigrant than I am, as I came from Puerto Rico when I was 6 years old. He has been living off the tax payers most of his life entire, just like you. Both of you are vampires so to speak. You both have created nothing. Post your actual creations that have been the betterment of mankind here. I want to see the medical procedure you came up with, the invention you blessed the world with, the new technologies you created. You both are worthless human rats that have achieved nothing in life.
"He is also very Tactful, Factual and Will Back Down, Like he did the UppityAss Piggie with "ONLY THREE" Tesla Automobiles "And NO MORE!" More total crap. He only posts left wing propaganda, when actually challenged he withers away like the coward he is. He refused to face actual people in a Coffee house for live debate. He uses a completely made up excuse to worm out of live debate. He says he does not have a drivers license and has never had one in his life which is utter bull crap. It's just not believable that a man of 70 some years has never had a drivers license, it's just not believable.
"Both of you are weak, German for Kow Towing to a Frikking Piggie with THREE GODDAMN $101,000.00 TESLAS! Sorry, dude, a frikkin LIBERAL SNOB is no more worthy of praise than a Capitalist (As Leon Trotsky states) Greed, One Upsmanship, keeping up with the Jones'es. Propaganda." You seem to be mentally unstable. A Jewish immigrant made it here by actually working. You are so jealous of the fact that a person can come to America, work their butt off and afford things like zero emission cars etc. Look at your sorry ass life, you are a street thug that begs for a living. Your jealously is very apparent here. As the Jewish person said, you both waste your time posting here instead of going out and doings something GREAT and being a productive Americans. You both are time wasters and suck off the tits of the American people.
"Pride is being MORE GREENER that THOU is disgusting. "The reasoning behind 3 teslas, charging one off Solar Arrays would take a week." Again you are a total nutcase! This is totally not factual. The home I am currently renting has SP and it is 100% off the grid as they say. We don't pay a PG&E bill at all, in fact the owner actually is selling power back to PG&E as a lot of SP homes often do. The family that owns the home are very conservative people so it's total subterfuge to say that conservatives don't do things good for the environment.
What you and Berkeley don't like is the Jewish mans words here, calling you both out for what you both are, troublemakers. He was dead on with his assessment of Berkeley and I will add, you as well. You both are trolls.
The man that has a wife that is a scientist doing climate research down at the south pole knows more about the climate then you foolish rats here on CL do. Like he said, when you are a scientist and actually do the research then just maybe your voice will be heard. But you and your Berkeley friend are not scientist (like myself) and you don't have the ability to sort out what is actual vetted facts and provable and repeatable concepts and what is speculation and guess work. Although I am not a climate scientist, I have friends that are and they all roll their eyes in disgust when the subject is brought up around them about man made global warming and their opinions are asked for. It's automatically assumed they warship at the anthropogenic global warming church, but they don't. In fact they reject it, just like the Co-founder of Green Peace has now done only after he look at the facts as they have been coming in. You all want to think anthropogenic global warming is settled science, it's not. One of my friends and collaborator on a project I am working on has done work on the climate situation for NASA and NOAA. He was a big believer in anthropogenic global warming until about 5 years ago. He changed his mind because he saw the facts as they are, that all the actual observed data does not match up with the model data. Once he realized the error in his assessment, he changed his mind totally. Real scientist look at the provable data, that's a fact. There is no observed and vetted data that proves the theory of anthropogenic global warming at this time. Maybe one day there will be, but not right now at this moment in time. The observed and vetted data on our Earth's climate change is pointing directly to natural cycles. Like it or not, that is what the data is showing and more and more climate scientist are in fact having to revers themselves on this subject.
I have given you all the time I will. Don't expect anymore replies from me ever again. I normally don't waste my time with trolls, but this morning I felt the need to knock down your rotgut, but never again will I address you, as I don't address Berkeley either, another total waste of time as well.
Both you and Berkeley do not have open minds, you don't have the ability to have flexible thoughts. You both are as ridged thinkers as the Tea Party people are too, you are just on the other side of the spectrum, i.e. the extreme ends of the party. When you and Berkeley and for the most part Not in Berkeley look in the mirror the refection is one of The Tea Party. You all are extreme in your views, just like the Tea Party is. ===============================================================
RE: Greenpeace Has Debunked Glonal Warming Denier Patrick Moore (Moor (USF / panhandle)
"Ask peer reviewed specialists, on the field, in places like the South Pole,"
My wife is a biologist and is stationed at the South Pole currently. She says man made Global Warming is total BS.
I trust my wife, not a clown like you, considering she actually is a scientist, a researcher and is studying the climate from a marine biological stand point. When you get your PH.D. from MIT like my wife has and you actually go to the South Pole for 6 month rotations and actually study the climate then maybe I will consider your point of view. But in the meantime my wife who actually studies man's impact on the warming and cooling of the planet totally agrees with the co-green peace founder. In fact she says he is a hero of sort because he was not afraid to actually tell the truth and actually change his mind once the data was in.
So go pound sand you toad! My wife is doing the real research, not clowns like you and the other creeps that infest this place.
BTW she is the one with the "UCF" sweater on, taken two weeks ago.
Reconciling melting glaciers and falling temperatures in the Bolivian highlands By Lykke E. Andersen*, La Paz, 23 March 2009.
Bolivia's rapidly diminishing Chacaltaya glacier has been widely used as a symbol of Anthropogenic Global Warming (1). However, it is an unfortunate choice of symbol, because the retreat of this specific glacier is demonstrably not due to increasing temperatures caused by CO2 emissions.
Figure 1: Retreat of the Chacaltaya glacier, Bolivia, 1940 -- 2005.
Source: IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report 2007, Figure 1.1.
All long-run monthly temperature series for the Bolivian highlands, including the La Paz/El Alto station, which is located near Chacaltaya, show cooling trends over the last six decades of about -0.2ºC/decade (2). This is confirmed by more recent daily temperature anomalies from the University of Dayton Daily Temperature Archive since 1995 (see Figure 2). There is a statistically significant negative trend of -0.11ºC/decade since 1/1/1995 (98% confidence). The average anomaly for the 1995-2009 period is -0.6ºC, suggesting that the recent negative trend is a continuation of a longer trend, as suggested by the monthly data.
Figure 2: Daily temperature anomalies for La Paz/El Alto, 1 January 1995 -- 12 March 2009
Source: Author's elaboration based on data from the University of Dayton Daily Temperature Archive (http://www.engr.udayton.edu/weather/). Note: Green is summer temperature anomalies and blue is winter temperature anomalies. The black slightly downward sloping line is the linear trend.
These observed negative temperature trends in the Bolivian highlands beg two questions:
1. How can the falling temperatures in the Bolivian highlands be reconciled with the visibly diminishing glaciers?
2. Why are temperatures falling, when they are supposed to be increasing?
The answers to these questions are quite complex and involve many different factors.
First, it is important to understand that changes in glaciers do not only depend on temperatures, but also on precipitation, cloud cover, relative humidity and the intensity of solar irradiation. And in the case of temperatures, summer temperatures (rainy season) are more important than winter temperatures (dry season), and daytime temperatures are more important than night time temperatures.
In Figure 2 above, we see that winter temperatures have fallen more strongly than summer temperatures (the average winter anomaly is -0.9ºC while average summer anomaly is -0.4ºC). Since winter is the dry season in this region, colder winter temperatures will have little effect on the glaciers because temperatures are already well below freezing. In contrast, warmer summer temperatures can have a dramatic effect. It was the unusually hot and dry summer of 1998 (the Mega-El Niño) which caused the permanent closing of the Chacaltaya ski-resort, and the four consecutive warm summers of 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 almost completely eliminated the glacier.
A meteorologist from the Hadley Climate Research Centre suggested to me that the likely explanation for the observed decrease in temperatures in the Bolivian highlands is a decrease in low level clouds. With fewer low level clouds, night time temperatures would tend to fall substantially (due to increased outgoing infra-red radiation), which would pull down average temperatures. During the day, fewer clouds would have a positive effect on temperatures, increase solar irradiation reaching the ice, and decrease air humidity and precipitation, all of which would contribute to speed up melting, despite stronger night time cooling.
I could not find specific data on cloud cover in the Bolivian highlands, but worldwide low level cloud cover has clearly decreased since about 1987 (see Figure 3). According to NASA/GISS the decrease is particularly strong in the tropics, including Bolivia (3), so the meteorologist's hunch is likely to be correct.
Figure 3: Global low level cloud cover, 1983-2007 Source: http://www.climate4you.com/. (Look under the topic: "Climate Clouds").
The decrease in cloud cover is related to decreases in precipitation, which has had a large influence on the fate of the Chacaltaya glacier. The increase in the glacier regression rate since the end of the 1970s appears to coincide with the Great Pacific Shift of 1976, after which precipitation has decreased systematically, both according to direct measurements at the La Paz/El Alto station, and according to precipitation proxy series generated from ice cores from two other Bolivian glaciers (4).
If the rapid melting of Chacaltaya since the mid 1970s were caused by increasing temperatures due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, we would have observed increased night time temperatures, increased average temperatures, and increases in cloud cover and precipitation (that is what CO2 driven climate models would suggest). But instead we have observed decreasing cloud cover, decreasing average temperatures (likely the result of night time temperatures falling more than day time temperatures increased), and decreasing precipitation, all of which conspired to melt the glacier.
The observed evidence from Chacaltaya is thus inconsistent with the Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming (AGW) theory, or, at least, if there is an AGW signal, it is completely drowned by other climatic changes unrelated to AGW.
It is ironic that the melting Chacaltaya glacier has become such an important symbol of the AGW theory, when in fact the evidence from Chacaltaya seems to refute this theory. (In contrast, the evidence from Chacaltaya is fully consistent with Svensmark's cosmic ray theory (5), but that is another story).
--------------------------------------------------------------------- re: Then How Does Your Wife Explain All the Melting Glaciers?
Are there people really that dumb on this planet? OMG! I never thought someone would be so stupid to make that kind of argument. How dumb do you have to be to post that crap? You must have an IQ the size of a walnut!
You idiot, the earth's climate is not static, it's not "ever lasting", it changes radically over long time periods.
So let me ask you, you moron! What caused the ice sheets to melt that buried NYC under almost 1/2 mile of ice? What caused the ice sheets to melt all the way back to the northern most tip of the earth?
My GOD you freak, the earth changes, continental drift and many other factor changes the planet all the time! It's like this - you idiots think that you can build a sandcastle at low tide and think it will always be there and stay there forever. You idiots fail to see the cycle of the tides that will remove your sandcastle given time. What you idiots want us all to do is change the way we live and sell us all on the bogus idea that somehow you can save the sandcastle AKA snake-oil salesmen. You can't save the sandcastle, just like you can't save the planet! It's a fools errand and it's insane! There is no "Save The Planet", its a marketing scheme, a ploy! The real issue is you can't stand the idea of freedom, and liberty. You all on the left are control freaks, you want to control us all and dictate to us all on how to live our lives. And the fact is "UN climate chief says communism is the only hope for environmentalism", goes to prove my point! So there you have it! Proof you climate freaks want communism, this is what this is really all about. It's not about science and never has been, heaven forbid you actually use your brain and pay attention to the debate they are having over this. You freaks made up your minds, you want to push your communism on us all freedom and liberty loving people, JUST FREAKING ADMIT WANT WE ALL READY KNOW! The UN climate Chief had the balls to admit it!!! Well GO ON, STEP up, ADMIT IT!
What you looney left wing idiots think is the earth never changes and it will never change and that somehow man control natural forces and you will control those forces by controlling mankind. I got news for ya, San Francisco will be under 100 feet of water in a few million years and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. The Hawaii island chain will be ground down to nothing and slip into the sea in less than 1 million years and there is NOTHING you can do about it, and I can go on and on! You think you have the power to stop the earth from changing, if we just stop driving cars etc, BULL SHIT!! What idiots you all are. FACT: NYC WILL IN FACT BE UNDER 1/2 MILE OF ICE AGAIN and it will also be covered in OCEAN as it was 9.5 Million years ago and there is NOTHING you can do about it! It will happen, it's just a matter of time. You CAN"T STOP IT EITHER so stop trying to sell us snake-oil! We are on to you! We know what the real deal is with you! We know the game you are playing here!
You also need to explain why there is actually ice on the North Pole because for 90% of the earths history the North Pole has in fact been ICE FREE!!!!! 90% of the time there has been NO ice on the north pole! Fifty-five million years ago the North Pole was an ice-free zone and was ice free for 100's of millions of years, with tropical temperatures, according to research. Sediment core's below the seabed of the Arctic Ocean has enabled scientists to delve far back into the region's past and they discovered the North Pole mostly has been ice free over the 100's of millions of years they were able to peer into. Some scientist estimate the North Pole was ice free for over 3.2 billion years.
So when you can explain why the ice sheets melted from last ice age you will have you freaking answer! It's called the natural cycle of things. Just because there was some ice on one part of the earth does not mean it has always belongs there you idiot! Talk the north pole for example, ice actually does not belong there, but it's there now and if goes away completely, well that is normal, because that is the way it's been for 90% of the earth's history!
Try putting this in your RED diaper, again PROVING THE EARTH CHANGES!!!!!!!!! http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/17/antarctica-tropical-climate-co2-research
DAMN you global warming freaks are thick headed dumb SOB's but it is also easy to brainwash you freaks... LOOK at what you freaks have done in the past, all the horrible things done to man by man has all been coming from you socialist, communist freaks! YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE!
Many jails today are being asked to do the job of mental health institutions, even though they lack the resources and expertise to treat people suffering from mental illness or substance abuse. Research shows that serious mental illness affects an estimated 14.5% of men in jails and 31% of women - rates that are three to six times higher than in the general population.
California has traditionally been on the cutting edge of American cultural developments, with Anaheim and Modesto experiencing changes before Atlanta and Moline. This was also true in the exodus of patients from state psychiatric hospitals. Beginning in the late 1950s, California became the national leader in aggressively moving patients from state hospitals to nursing homes and board-and-care homes, known in other states by names such as group homes, boarding homes, adult care homes, family care homes, assisted living facilities, community residential facilities, adult foster homes, transitional living facilities, and residential care facilities. Hospital wards closed as the patients left. By the time Ronald Reagan assumed the governorship in 1967, California had already deinstitutionalized more than half of its state hospital patients. That same year, California passed the landmark Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, which virtually abolished involuntary hospitalization except in extreme cases. Thus, by the early 1970s California had moved most mentally ill patients out of its state hospitals and, by passing LPS, had made it very difficult to get them back into a hospital if they relapsed and needed additional care. California thus became a canary in the coal mine of deinstitutionalization. The results were quickly apparent. As early as 1969, a study of California board-and-care homes described them as follows: These facilities are in most respects like small long-term state hospital wards isolated from the community. One is overcome by the depressing atmosphere. . . . They maximize the state-hospital-like atmosphere. . . . The operator is being paid by the head, rather than being rewarded for rehabilitation efforts for her “guests.” The study was done by Richard Lamb, a young psychiatrist working for San Mateo County; in the intervening years, he has continued to be the leading American psychiatrist pointing out the failures of deinstitutionalization. By 1975 board-and-care homes had become big business in California. In Los Angeles alone, there were “approximately 11,000 ex-state-hospital patients living in board-and-care facilities.” Many of these homes were owned by for-profit chains, such as Beverly Enterprises, which owned 38 homes. Many homes were regarded by their owners “solely as a business, squeezing excessive profits out of it at the expense of residents.” Five members of Beverly Enterprises’ board of directors had ties to Governor Reagan; the chairman was vice chairman of a Reagan fundraising dinner, and “four others were either politically active in one or both of the Reagan [gubernatorial] campaigns and/or contributed large or undisclosed sums of money to the campaign.” Financial ties between the governor, who was emptying state hospitals, and business persons who were profiting from the process would also soon become apparent in other states. Many of the board-and-care homes in California, as elsewhere, were clustered in city areas that were rundown and thus had low rents. In San Jose, for example, approximately 1,800 patients discharged from nearby Agnews State Hospital were placed in homes clustered near the campus of San Jose State University. As early as 1971 the local newspaper decried this “mass invasion of mental patients.” Some patients left their board-and-care homes because of the poor living conditions, whereas others were evicted when the symptoms of their illness recurred because they were not receiving medication, but both scenarios resulted in homelessness. By 1973 the San Jose area was described as having “discharged patients…living in skid row…wandering aimlessly in the streets . . . a ghetto for the mentally ill and mentally retarded.” Similar communities were becoming visible in other California cities as well as in New York. In Long Beach on Long Island, old motels and hotels were filled with patients discharged from nearly Creedmore and Pilgrim State Hospitals. By 1973, community residents were complaining that their town was becoming a psychiatric ghetto; at the local Catholic church, patients were said to “have urinated on the floor during Mass and eaten the altar flowers.” The Long Beach City Council therefore passed an ordinance requiring patients to take their prescribed medication as a condition for living there. Predictably, the New York Civil Liberties Union immediately challenged the ordinance as being unconstitutional, and it was so ruled. By this time, there were about 5,000 board-and-care homes in New York City, some with as many as 285 beds and with up to 85% of their residents having been discharged from the state hospitals. As one New York psychiatrist summarized the situation: “The chronic mentally ill patient has had his locus of living and care transferred from a single lousy institution to multiple wretched ones.” California was the first state to witness not only an increase in homelessness associated with deinstitutionalization but also an increase in incarceration and episodes of violence. In 1972 Marc Abramson, another young psychiatrist working for San Mateo County, published a landmark paper entitled “The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Behavior.” Abramson claimed that because the new LPS statute made it difficult to get patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital, police “regard arrest and booking into jail as a more reliable way of securing involuntary detention of mentally disordered persons.” Abramson quoted a California prison psychiatrist who claimed to be “literally drowning in patients. . . . Many more men are being sent to prison who have serious mental problems.” Abramson’s paper was the first clear description of the increase of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons, an increase that would grow markedly in subsequent years. By the mid-1970s, studies in some states suggested that about 5% of jail inmates were seriously mentally ill. A study of five California county jails reported that 6.7% of the inmates were psychotic. A study of the Denver County Jail reported that 5% of prisoners had a “functional psychosis.” Such figures contrasted with studies from the 1930s that had reported less than 2% of jail inmates as being seriously mentally ill. In 1973 the jail in Santa Clara County, which included San Jose, “created a special ward…to house just the individuals who have such a mental condition”; this was apparently the first county jail to create a special mental illness unit. Given the increasing number of seriously mentally ill individuals living in the community in California by the mid-1970s, it is not surprising to find that they were impacting the tasks of police officers. A study of 301 patients discharged from Napa State Hospital between 1972 and 1975 found that 41% of them had been arrested. According to the study, “patients who entered the hospital without a criminal record were subsequently arrested about three times as often as the average citizen.” Significantly, the majority of these patients had received no aftercare following their hospital discharge. By this time, police in other states were also beginning to feel the burden of the discharged, but often untreated, mentally ill individuals. In suburban Philadelphia, for example, “mental-illness-related incidents increased 227.6% from 1975 to 1979, whereas felonies increased only 5.6%.” Of all the omens of deinstitutionalization’s failure on exhibit in 1970s California, the most frightening were homicides and other episodes of violence committed by mentally ill individuals who were not being treated. 1970: John Frazier, responding to the voice of God, killed a prominent surgeon and his wife, two young sons, and secretary. Frazier’s mother and wife had sought unsuccessfully to have him hospitalized. 1972: Herbert Mullin, responding to auditory hallucinations, killed 13 people over 3 months. He had been hospitalized three times but released without further treatment. 1973: Charles Soper killed his wife, three children, and himself 2 weeks after having been discharged from a state hospital. 1973: Edmund Kemper killed his mother and her friend and was charged with killing six others. Eight years earlier, he had killed his grandparents because “he tired of their company,” but at age 21 years had been released from the state hospital without further treatment. 1977: Edward Allaway, believing that people were trying to hurt him, killed seven people at Cal State Fullerton. Five years earlier, he had been hospitalized for paranoid schizophrenia but released without further treatment. Such homicides were widely publicized. Many people perceived the tragedies as being linked to California’s efforts to shut its state hospitals and to the new LPS law, which made involuntary treatment virtually impossible. The foreman of the jury that convicted Herbert Mullin of the murders for which he was charged reflected the sentiments of many when he publicly stated: I hold the state executive and state legislative offices as responsible for these ten lives as I do the defendant himself—none of this need ever have happened….In recent years, mental hospitals all over this state have been closed down in an economy move by the Reagan administration. Where do you think these . . . patients went after their release? . . . The closing of our mental hospitals is, in my opinion, insanity itself. In response to queries about the homicides, the California Department of Mental Health had its deputy director, Dr. Andrew Robertson, testify before a state legislative inquiry in 1973. His testimony must rank among the all-time least successful attempts by a public official to reassure the public: It [LPS] has exposed us as a society to some dangerous people; no need to argue about that. People whom we have released have gone out and killed other people, maimed other people, destroyed property; they have done many things of an evil nature without their ability to stop and many of them have immediately thereafter killed themselves. That sounds bad, but let’s qualify it. . . . the odds are still in society’s favor, even if it doesn’t make patients innocent or the guy who is hurt or killed feel any better. 1980s: THE PROBLEMS BECOME NATIONAL Until the 1980s, most people in the United States were unaware that the deinstitutionalization of patients from state mental hospitals was going terribly wrong. Some were aware that homicides and other untoward things were happening in California, but such things were to be expected, because it was, after all, California. President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health issued its 1978 report and recommended doing more of the same things—more CMHCs, more prevention of mental illness, and more federal spending. The report gave no indication of a pending crisis. The majority of patients who had been discharged from state hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s had gone to their own homes, nursing homes, or board-and-care homes; they were, therefore, out of sight and out of mind. In the 1980s, this all changed. Deinstitutionalization became, for the first time, a topic of national concern. The beginning of the discussion was heralded by a 1981 editorial in the New York Times that labeled deinstitutionalization “a cruel embarrassment, a reform gone terribly wrong.” Three years later, the paper added: “The policy that led to the release of most of the nation’s mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure.” During the following decade, there were increasing concerns publicly expressed about mentally ill individuals in nursing homes, board-and-care homes, and jails and prisons. There were also periodic headlines announcing additional high-profile homicides committed by individuals who were clearly psychotic. But the one issue that took center stage in the 1980s, and directed public attention to deinstitutionalization, was the problem of mentally ill homeless persons. During the 1980s, an additional 40,000 beds in state mental hospitals were shut down. The patients being sent to community facilities were no longer those who were moderately well-functioning or elderly; rather, they included the more difficult, chronic patients from the hospitals’ back wards. These patients were often younger than patients previously discharged, less likely to respond to medication, and less likely to be aware of their need for medication. In 1988 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) issued estimates of where patients with chronic mental illness were living. Approximately 120,000 were said to be still hospitalized; 381,000 were in nursing homes; between 175,000 and 300,000 were living in board-and-care homes; and between 125,000 and 300,000 were thought to be homeless. These broad estimates for those living in board-and-care homes and on the streets suggested that neither NIMH nor anyone else really knew how many there were. Abuse of mentally ill persons in nursing homes had originally come to public attention during 1974 hearings of the Senate Committee on Aging. Those hearings had described nursing homes actually bidding on patients in attempts to get those who were most easily managed; bounties of $100 paid by nursing homes to hospital psychiatrists for every patient sent to them; and exorbitant profits for the nursing homes. As a consequence of such hearings and a 1986 study of nursing homes by the Institute of Medicine, Congress passed legislation in 1987 requiring all Medicaid-funded nursing homes to screen new admissions to keep out patients who did not qualify for admission because they did not require skilled nursing care. Follow-up studies indicated that the screening mandate had little effect on admission policies or abuses. Abuse of mentally ill persons in board-and-care homes also periodically surfaced at this time: 1982: “Nine ragged, emaciated adults” were found in an unlicensed home for mentally ill individuals in Jackson, Mississippi. They were living in a 10-by-10 foot building with “no toilet or running water, only a plastic bucket to collect body wastes. A hose and faucet outside the building were used for washing. There were two mattresses on the concrete floor and a single cot in the room.” There were also “two vicious dogs chained outside the room.” 1984: Seven “former patients” died in a fire in a “rooming house” in Worcester, Massachusetts. “The report released this week said officials of Worcester State Hospital who referred the former patients to the rooming house had been warned by community health workers that the privately owned house was not safe.” Sociologist Andrew Scull in 1981 summarized the economics of the board-and-care industry: “The logic of the marketplace suffices to ensure that the operators have every incentive to warehouse their charges as cheaply as possible, since the volume of profit is inversely proportional to the amount expended on the inmates.” In addition, because many board-and-care homes were in crime-ridden neighborhoods, mentally ill individuals living in them were often victimized when they went outside. A 1984 study of 278 patients living in board-and-care homes in Los Angeles reported that one-third “reported being robbed and/or assaulted during the preceding year.” The problems of mentally ill individuals in nursing homes and board-and-care homes rarely elicited media attention in the 1980s. By contrast, the problem of homeless persons, including the mentally ill homeless, became a major story. In Washington, Mitch Snyder and the National Coalition for the Homeless burst onto the national scene by staging hunger strikes and sleep-ins on sidewalk grates. Their message was that homeless persons are just like you and me and all they need is a house and a job. Snyder challenged President Reagan, accusing him of being the main cause of homelessness, and the media extensively covered the controversy. By the time Snyder committed suicide in 1990, homelessness had become a major topic of national discussion. Despite the claims of homeless advocates, media attention directed to homeless persons made it increasingly clear that many of them were, in fact, seriously mentally ill. In 1981, Life magazine ran a story titled “Emptying the Madhouse: The Mentally Ill Have Become Our Cities’ Lost Souls.” In 1982, Rebecca Smith froze to death in a cardboard box on the streets of New York; the media focused on her death because it was said that she had been valedictorian of her college class before becoming mentally ill. In 1983, the media covered the story of Lionel Aldridge, the former all-pro linebacker for the Green Bay Packers; after developing schizophrenia, he had been homeless for several years on the streets of Milwaukee. In 1984, a study from Boston reported that 38% of homeless persons in Boston were seriously mentally ill. The report was titled “Is Homelessness a Mental Health Problem?” and confirmed what people were increasingly beginning to suspect—that many homeless persons had previously been patients in the state mental hospitals. By the mid-1980s, a consensus had emerged that the total number of homeless persons was increasing. The possible reasons for this increase became a political football, but the failure of the mental health system was one option widely discussed. A 1985 report from Los Angeles estimated that 30% to 50% of homeless persons were seriously mentally ill and were being seen in “ever increasing numbers.” The study concluded that this was “in part the product of the deinstitutionalization movement….The ‘Streets’ have become ‘The Asylums’ of the 80s.” The appearance of Joyce Brown on the streets of New York in 1986 added a new dimension to the national dialogue. Prior to taking up residence on a steam grate at the corner of East 65th Street and Second Avenue, Brown had worked for 10 years as a secretary. She had then become mentally ill, was hospitalized, and discharged. While living on the street, Brown was observed urinating on the sidewalk, defecating in the gutter, tearing up money given to her by passersby, and running into traffic. New York mayor Ed Koch ordered her to be involuntarily hospitalized, well aware that the Civil Liberties Union’s lawyers would contest the case. Koch’s statement reflected the sentiments of many: “If the crazies want to sue me, they have every right to sue, and by crazies I’m . . . talking about those who say, ‘No, you have no right to intervene to help.’ ” The civil liberty lawyers prevailed, and the civil right to be both psychotic and homeless thus added another legal wrinkle to the ongoing homeless debate. By the end of the 1980s, the origins of the increasing number of mentally ill homeless persons had become abundantly clear. A study of 187 patients discharged from Metropolitan State Hospital in Massachusetts reported that 27% had become homeless. A study of 132 patients discharged from Columbus State Hospital in Ohio reported that 36% had become homeless. In 1989, when a San Francisco television station wished to advertise its series on homelessness, it put up posters around the city saying, “You are now walking though America’s newest mental institution.” Psychiatrist Richard Lamb added: “Probably nothing more graphically illustrates the problems of deinstitutionalization than the shameful and incredible phenomenon of the homeless mentally ill.” * * * At the same time that mentally ill homeless persons were becoming an object of national concern during the 1980s, the number of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons was also increasing. A 1989 review of available studies concluded that “the prevalence rates for major psychiatric disorders . . . [in jails and prisons] have increased slowly and gradually in the last 20 years and will probably continue to increase.” Various studies reported rates ranging from 6% (Virginia) and 8% (New York) to 10% (Oklahoma and California) and 11% (Michigan and Pennsylvania). By 1990, a national survey concluded: Given all the data, it seems reasonable to conclude that approximately 10 percent of inmates in prisons and jails, or approximately 100,000 individuals, suffer from schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis [bipolar disorder]. This 10% estimate contrasted with the 5% prevalence rate that had been widely cited a decade earlier. Amid the various studies, disturbing trends were evident. Among 132 patients discharged from Columbus State Hospital in Ohio, 17% were arrested within 6 months. In California, seriously mentally ill individuals with a history of past violence, including armed robbery and murder, were being discharged from mental hospitals without any planned aftercare. In Colorado in 1984, George Wooton, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was booked into the Denver County Jail for the hundredth time; he would be the first prominent member of a group that would become widely known as “frequent flyers.” In several states the bizarre behavior of mentally ill inmates was also becoming problematic for jail personnel; in Montana a man “tried to drown himself in the jail toilet,” and in California inmates tried to escape “by smearing themselves with their own feces and flushing themselves down the toilet.” To make matters worse, civil liberties lawyers frequently defended the rights of mentally ill prisoners to refuse medication and remain psychotic. At a 1985 commitment hearing in Wisconsin, for example, a public defender argued that his jailed mentally ill client, who had been observed eating his feces, “was in no imminent danger of physical injury or dying” and should therefore be released; the judge agreed. As more and more mentally ill individuals entered the criminal justice system in the 1980s, local police and sheriffs’ departments were increasingly affected. In New York City, calls associated with “emotionally disturbed persons,” referred to as “EDPs,” increased from 20,843 in 1980 to 46,845 in 1988, and “experts say similar increases have occurred in other large cities.” Many such calls required major deployments of police resources. The rescue of a mentally ill man from the top of a tower on Staten Island, for example, “required at least 20 police officers and supervisors, half a dozen emergency vehicles, several highway units and a helicopter.” In an attempt to deal with these psychiatric emergencies, the police department in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1988 created the first specially trained police Crisis Intervention Team, or CIT, as it would become known as it was replicated in other cities. * * * Finally, the 1980s witnessed increasing episodes of violence, including homicides, committed by mentally ill individuals who were not receiving treatment. The decade began ominously with three high-profile shootings between March 1980 and March 1981. Former congressman Allard Lowenstein was killed by Dennis Sweeney, John Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman, and President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. All three perpetrators had untreated schizophrenia. Sweeney, for example, believed that Lowenstein, his former mentor, had implanted a transmitter in his teeth through which he was sending harassing voices. As the decade progressed, such widely publicized homicides became more common: 1985: Sylvia Seegrist, diagnosed with schizophrenia and with 12 past hospitalizations, killed three and wounded seven in a Pennsylvania shopping mall. Bryan Stanley, diagnosed with schizophrenia and with seven past hospitalizations, killed a priest and two others in a Wisconsin Catholic church. Lois Lang, diagnosed with schizophrenia and discharged from a mental hospital 3 months earlier, killed the chairman of a foreign exchange firm and his receptionist in New York. 1986: Juan Gonzalez, diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychiatrically evaluated 4 days earlier, killed two and injured nine others with a sword on New York’s Staten Island Ferry. 1987: David Hassan, discharged 2 days earlier from a mental hospital, killed four people by running them over with his car in California. 1988: Laurie Dann, who was known to both the police and FBI because of her threatening and psychotic behavior, killed a boy and injured five of his classmates in an Illinois elementary school. Dorothy Montalvo, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was accused of murdering at least seven elderly individuals and burying them in her backyard in California. Aaron Lindh, known to be mentally ill and threatening, killed the Dane County coroner in Madison, Wisconsin. This was one of six incidents in that county during 1988 “involving mentally ill individuals . . . [that] resulted in four homicides, three suicides, seven victims wounded by gunshots, and one victim mauled by a polar bear” when a mentally ill man climbed into its pen at the local zoo. 1989: Joseph Wesbecker, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, killed 7 and wounded 13 at a printing plant in Kentucky. Another indication that such episodes of violence were increasing was a study that compared admissions to a New York state psychiatric hospital in 1975 and 1982. It reported that “the percentage of patients who had committed violence toward persons while living in the community in the 1982 cohort was nearly double the percentage in the 1975 cohort.” In addition, “the percentage of patients who had had encounters with the criminal justice system in the 1982 cohort was more than quadruple the percentage in the 1975 cohort.” Is there any way to estimate the frequency of these episodes of violence committed by mentally ill person who were not being treated? There was then, and continues to be, no national database that tracks homicides committed by mentally ill persons. However, a small study published in 1988 provided a clue. In Contra Costa County, California, all 71 homicides committed between 1978 and 1980 were examined. Seven of the 71 homicides were found to have been done by individuals with schizophrenia, all of whom had been previously hospitalized at some point before the crime. The 10% rate was also consistent with the findings of another small study in Albany County, New York. Therefore, by the late 1980s, it appeared that violent acts committed by untreated mentally ill persons was one of the consequences of the deinstitutionalization movement, and the problem appeared to be a growing one. Excerpted from “American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System” by E. Fuller Torrey with permission from Oxford University Press USA. Copyright 2014 E. Fuller Torrey. Jail is not supposed to be where you put the mentally ill or those too poor to pay bail. Many jails today are being asked to do the job of mental health institutions, even though they lack the resources and expertise to treat people suffering from mental illness or substance abuse. Research shows that serious mental illness affects an estimated 14.5% of men in jails and 31% of women - rates that are three to six times higher than in the general population. Ronald Reagan's shameful legacy: Violence, the homeless, mental illness Nor is it supposed to be where African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians go for crimes that don't land white people behind bars. But that is what they are increasingly becoming. The primary purpose of jails, unlike prisons, is to be a temporary holding space where those who are a danger to the public or are a flight risk can await court proceedings. But they now hold many who are neither. Too often, jails are warehouses of low-risk individuals who are too poor to post bail or too sick for existing community resources to manage. While incarceration starts locally in county and city jails, it of course doesn't stop there. Research shows that even a few days in jail before trial or release can increase the likelihood of receiving a sentence of incarceration -- and can increase the harshness of that sentence. As president and governor of California, the GOP icon led the worst policies on mental illness in generations Excerpted from "American Psychosis" In November 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly defeated Jimmy Carter, who received less than 42% of the popular vote, for president. Republicans took control of the Senate (53 to 46), the first time they had dominated either chamber since 1954. Although the House remained under Democratic control (243 to 192), their margin was actually much slimmer, because many southern "boll weevil" Democrats voted with the Republicans. One month prior to the election, President Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act, which had proposed to continue the federal community mental health centers program, although with some additional state involvement. Consistent with the report of the Carter Commission, the act also included a provision for federal grants "for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health," an indication of how little learning had taken place among the Carter Commission members and professionals at NIMH. With President Reagan and the Republicans taking over, the Mental Health Systems Act was discarded before the ink had dried and the CMHC funds were simply block granted to the states. The CMHC program had not only died but been buried as well. An autopsy could have listed the cause of death as naiveté complicated by grandiosity. President Reagan never understood mental illness. Like Richard Nixon, he was a product of the Southern California culture that associated psychiatry with Communism. Two months after taking office, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, a young man with untreated schizophrenia. Two years later, Reagan called Dr. Roger Peele, then director of St. Elizabeths Hospital, where Hinckley was being treated, and tried to arrange to meet with Hinckley, so that Reagan could forgive him. Peele tactfully told the president that this was not a good idea. Reagan was also exposed to the consequences of untreated mental illness through the two sons of Roy Miller, his personal tax advisor. Both sons developed schizophrenia; one committed suicide in 1981, and the other killed his mother in 1983. Despite such personal exposure, Reagan never exhibited any interest in the need for research or better treatment for serious mental illness.
